


Atonement

by Thistlerose



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gen Fic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith isn't any good at saying she's sorry, probably because - most of the time - she just isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atonement

They sat on the bus's front hood, legs dangling over the grille. Neither spoke as the sun sank lower and lower and the sky went from the color of blood to the color of a scar, before fading to black. The stars came out, sharp as knife-points, and the temperature dropped. In the desert night's dry chill, Faith tried to find her voice.

She had to swallow a few times and run the tip of her tongue over her lips. Even then, the words came out all strange, kind of crinkly-sounding, like her throat was lined with broken glass. "B," she said, "I ain't good at this. At sayin' sorry. Mostly 'cause I'm usually _not_. But…"

"It's okay," Buffy said quietly, still looking straight ahead. At where Sunnydale would've been if it weren't a big gaping hole in the ground. "Honestly, you don't have to say anything. You were there when it counted. That's enough."

And it should've been. It might've been … before the Mayor and Angel and a fuckton of other things that rose up in the way of … whatever they'd had four years ago. Faith hesitated to call it friendship. Friendship was what the little Slayerettes had with one another. Friendship was what Buffy had with Willow and Xander, though it ran a whole lot deeper. Whatever she and Buffy had had four years ago, it was something else.

"It ain't enough," Faith said stubbornly. "It's—" Her blunt fingernails skittered over the hood, making a small, whiny sound.

"Oh, my God, please—" Buffy began.

"Sorry." Faith scratched at her denim-clad thighs instead. "Uh. Guess what I'm tryin' to say is …" She picked a star and stared determinedly at it. "Of all the things I lost in my life, I'm glad you weren't one." The words just slipped out of her that time. They left her heart feeling like it had been wrung dry.

Buffy was quiet for so long that Faith wondered if maybe she hadn't said the words after all. Or if, by saying them, she'd somehow broken Buffy. Giles was gonna be pissed if that were the case.

"Uh," Faith said uncertainly. "B? You in there at all?"

"I think so," Buffy replied in a very small voice. "Um, pinch me? No, wait – don't," she added quickly as Faith began to raise her hand. "I believe you. I'm glad too." She shifted a little closer. Not so close that they were touching, just enough so that a sliver of warmth was trapped between them.

And Faith was okay with that.

12/31/09

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Atonement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1390774) by [argentumlupine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentumlupine/pseuds/argentumlupine)




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